


a symphony of wind

by sannlykke



Series: here there be roses [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Gen, The Secret Garden - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-06 12:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17939774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sannlykke/pseuds/sannlykke
Summary: Mayuzumi Chihiro is quite rightly sick of the noise bothering him all throughout his stay at the manor. The terrible howling storm, the clack-clack of heavy boots, but above all, the strange violin music that always starts just as he is about to turn in.It is, he decides, time for an investigation.





	a symphony of wind

**Author's Note:**

> this is borne out of [these (vague, maybe somewhat outdated now) particular headcanons](http://yellowing.tumblr.com/post/155583495264/the-secret-garden-x-knb-au) i made two years ago with @miss-liding. yes it takes me about 48473 years to get to anything. yes it is just one scene. no i can't promise more but i'd love to (how many times have i said that at this point lol.)
> 
> anyway; happy birthday, mayuzumi!

Chihiro sits upright in his bed, listening to the sound of howling wind. He has found it difficult to sleep the way he did in the past, up here—there’s too much noise, and then not enough. Worse still is the fact that he could hear music.

It’s not very loud, and he can’t hear it all the time, but it’s there. The sound of someone playing the violin.

 

Chihiro is not a particularly wilful child, though some might suppose him unrestrained for his age. Upon his arrival at the big house his caretaker had taken one look at him and despaired of his greatly diminished presence, which manifested itself quite swiftly in the the staff not being able to find him for three hours while attempting to deliver breakfast. Chihiro doesn’t find it a fault (doesn’t care, actually); it is simply how things have always been.

Everything is much the same here, Chihiro thinks, except one. He had also been duly ignored in all other instances regardless of guardian, all the way up until the sickness had broken out in the old town. but it had mattered little to a child whose only source of pastime is reading. But they had not allowed him to keep his books when he was so ignominiously removed from his previous home, and had not allowed him new books since.

Preposterous. The Akashi manor is the largest structure he’s ever seen, imposing but in a somewhat crumbling state, situated on the edge of what they call a moor. Chihiro had never seen a moor before being herded across the vast expanse of heather by the graceful but harried young butler Mibuchi, whose myriad complaints had fallen on deaf ears throughout the entire journey. Complaints of the kind that did not include a sore lack of books, Chihiro had been apt to pick up, which to his young mind means there must be an abundance of it. But where? Why wouldn’t they let him read?

If it were the goal of his new caretakers to slowly bore him to death, it might just be working.

 

Chihiro slips out of the heavy quilts soundlessly, all manner of noises from the forceful gale out on the moor battering his senses. It has been raining for the entirety of three days, and even for one who willingly spends most of his life indoors Chihiro has been starting to feel the want to stretch his feet again. Besides, at this hour, nobody will come checking on him.

Perhaps he would make a detour to the library he’d found earlier the day before, full of dusty, strange old tomes though it is. Then he could investigate the noise, if he were still interested. He would need to be careful; straying anywhere too close to the far end of the side hallway had resulted in him being painfully tugged back to his room by the irate Mibuchi, who’d unfortunately happened upon him.

He presses his ear to the heavy wooden door, listening for footsteps beneath the music that never come. Then, carefully, Chihiro pops the lock open, wriggles out from the small gap, then closes it. He chances a listen at Shuuzou’s door, next to his, and hears only small snores.

Keeping to the shadows, Chihiro silently goes down the hallway in search of the offending violin.

 

The manor is a maze in all regards, with its long hallways and stairways that start to blend together after a while, particularly to the eyes of a child and a first-time visitor. Scarce had Chihiro taken a turn at what he thinks is the right hallway when he hears the violin again, its tune high and plaintive, soaring above the outside din. For a moment he wonders why nobody seems to have come out to investigate; surely it is not only he who is bothered by the sound.

“Perhaps they’re all used to it,” he mutters to himself as he looks up at the dim yellow lights illuminating the portraits lining each hallway. Chihiro recognizes none of them, as he expected. He is not even sure he would recognize Akashi Masaomi, the manor’s elusive patriarch whose distant relation to Chihiro’s late parents is the only reason why he had been sent here in the first place.

The sudden sound of footsteps freezes Chihiro on the spot. Spying a growing light in the distant corner, he ducks into the nearest open room and peeks out, interest piqued. It is not Mibuchi who walks by with a lantern; rather, one of the young cooks (the big, strong one; Chihiro knows not his name, and doesn’t care to) carrying a basket in one hand walks by, giving no care whatsoever to the heavy clunking of his boots.

What a strange house, Chihiro thinks. One where nobody seems to care about all manner of noises in the middle of the night. Once the footsteps have faded considerably Chihiro slips out of the room again. There’s a sort of herbal aroma in the air now, one that lingers even after the cook has gone. Taking care to note his position, Chihiro hurries after the cook as quietly as he could.

Chihiro isn’t hungry, but he’d seen something else poking out of the basket: the firelight reflecting off the leather-bound corner of a book.

 

He’d been so overcome upon seeing a book that Chihiro had almost forgotten about investigating the violin. But the violin had not forgotten about him, it seems.

Chihiro hears a door crack open beyond his line of vision, and then the unmistakable and very audible screech of an instrument stopping mid-performance.

“Oi, Akashi,” he could just about make out, “What did I tell you about playing at this time of the night again, eh? Mibuchi would skin me alive if he hears about this again.”

“I haven’t been playing loudly,” says another voice, high-pitched and impetuous. Chihiro frowns; it sounds like another kid, someone closer to his age. But he hadn’t known about any other children staying here. “Besides, the wind drowns it out. What are you doing here, Nebuya?”

“Was cleaning up when I saw you left this down in the kitchens,” Nebuya replies, in a tone Chihiro perceives to be half-fond but mostly exasperated. Chihiro could see two shadowy silhouettes drawn out on the hallway, the cook’s and one much shorter. “I brought you tea.”

“Thank you.”

He hears a weary sigh, a shuffle of feet. “Don’t sleep too late, now. And start eating more, really.”

Chihiro plasters himself to the walls as Nebuya passes by, swinging his now-empty basket. The door is closed now, but Chihiro could still see candlelight streaming from the crack beneath.

So, Nebuya had called him Akashi. As far as Chihiro is concerned, nobody had bothered to tell him about Akashi Masaomi having a son, or any children at all. Or even a wife. The house is so dreary there might as well only be ghosts inhabiting its walls for all Chihiro knows.

It does not matter. If this child Akashi would be so careless as to leave his books laying around everywhere in the house, he must own an abundance of them.

 

The first thing Chihiro sees upon pushing open the door is a small foyer leading into the main space, and then a half-open doorway on the left leading to another, dark room. The second thing he sees is the bookshelf lining the wall almost on his right, filled with all manner of things: textbooks, mostly, but he spies on the lowest shelf an arrangement of novels with familiar-sounding authors on the binding.

The third thing he sees is a shock of red hair, then sharp eyes that seem to look through his being, freezing him in place. The boy is holding his violin no longer, his hands clutching a cup of hot chamomile tea, still mildly steaming.

“Hello,” says Akashi Seijuurou, the corners of his lips turning up in a way that Chihiro decides immediately he does not at all care for, “You must be Mayuzumi Chihiro.”


End file.
